The perpetual denial of Canberra’s policy trials

The most concerning aspect of Australia’s economic debate at present, with a Federal election promised for May 2019, is the rapidly widening gap between political narratives and the lived experience of voters.

Australia’s political instability damages the national interest

Australia is one of the most successful and stable countries in the world, but our ‘revolving door’ of prime ministers over the last decade has damaged our ability to pursue long term policies for the public good.

A carbon economy

It is all too easily forgotten that the discipline of economics is as much an "art" as it is a "science", and we are hoping to develop a "society", and not just an "economy".

In my professorial days I used to tease my students, in an attempt to encourage them to think for themselves, to think beyond the text books, by asking them what particular conclusion they wanted to reach on some economic policy issue, and them claiming that I could build an economic/mathematical model to "prove" it!

I was particularly keen to ensure that their thinking was not constrained by any particular theoretical or model framework and to get them to understand the limitations of any particular models that they were working with.